


Summon Materia: A User's Catalogue

by bookoftheazuresky



Series: Mastered Materia: A Collector's Catalogue [4]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Chocobos, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Magic, Materia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2019-11-07 18:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17965724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookoftheazuresky/pseuds/bookoftheazuresky
Summary: Red materia for summoning.Mini fic for the main characters of FFVII, one for each materia.





	1. Choco/Mog: Cloud

**Author's Note:**

> Finally into the summon materia!
> 
> Beta by meadowlarked.

Cloud leaned up against the fence around the chocobo pasture, meeting the lively, inquisitive eyes of the yellow bird on the other side. The fence was more of an afterthought, really- a chocobo could easily hurdle the wooden structure even though it was up to Cloud’s chest.

“Kweh?” The chocobo leaned closer, its strong, lithe neck curving as if to invite petting. Cloud reached out, tentatively- chocobos had _very_ sharp claws, plus strong beaks that let them drive off monsters from their flocks. A domesticated bird like this one was well used to human touch, however. It let him dig fingers into the downy feathers, resting its head on the fence with every evidence of avian pleasure and pushing closer.

Eventually it lifted its head and huffed breath smelling of greens into his hair. “Wark!” it chirped brightly.

It seemed to want an answer, so Cloud mimicked the sound as best he could. It perked up at his attempt and did a little dance, fluttering its wings and curvetting. Then it dipped its yellow-crested head and scraped at the ground until it separated a roundish stone from the dirt and nudged it against his boot.

“Thanks,” Cloud said dryly. It blinked at him and nudged his boot again. Cloud sighed and bent to pick up the rock. It was lighter than he expected- a dirt clod?

He brushed it off, dried soil flaking onto his gloves. A reddish glint of light reflected off of a smooth surface.

“Oh,” Cloud breathed out. The chocobo, satisfied, started to preen Cloud’s hair.


	2. Shiva: Tifa

Tifa is a daughter of long winters, of short days where the sun dips behind the mountains while the sky is still light. She is a child of Mt. Nibel, and cold is bred into her bones.

These lowlanders with their stories that call Shiva “the gentle” or “the compassionate” don’t know a thing about cold.

Shiva is all the glory of the snow struck by sunlight until it blinds, all the ferocity of the screaming gale that rushed through her birthplace in the dead of night and would not unclench its grasp for weeks at a time. She is beautiful, but it’s the beauty of razors driven into the lungs and skin burned by frost. If she is gentle, it is the gentle slide into unconsciousness that presages freezing to death.

In Nibelheim, Shiva is the last lover you’ll ever take.


	3. Ifrit: Barret

Corel- _old_ Corel, that is, not its current beleaguered incarnation- had been a coal-mining town long before Barrett’s great-grandparents arrived looking for work.

Myrna’s family had been there longer than the Wallaces. Her grandmother had entertained all the miners’ children with stories passed down through the years, old scandals and gossip and legends woven together until the threads were as indistinguishable as those of her mended shirts.

It’s her creaky voice and the flash of her needle that Barret remembers when he thinks of Ifrit, when he tells Marlene the stories that he heard with Myrna and Dyne as children. “Long ago,” she’d said, “Ifrit was the hungriest and most impatient of the gods. Flashfire, he was called, because he devoured forests and fields in an instant, never stopping or considering those he left in his wake without shelter or food.”

It was only when Fire met coal, long burning and grounded, that Ifrit had become a friend to the Ancients. Coals, the old stories taught, had been the first inspiration for materia, power held inside a stone. The Ancients had moved on from coal eventually, but supposedly the Corel mines had been the birthplace of the first materia.


	4. Ramuh: Cid

Of all the old gods, Cid thought, looking at the collection of offerings in the corner of Rocket Town’s bar, Ramuh had survived best in the present day. Cid could remember his Pa’s old corner shrine, an eye of lightning constructed of copper wire. No matter how much smoke the cars in the shop coated the sign with, his Pa would always polish it up at the end of the day and touch it in the morning for good luck.

Lightning was the element all the scientists and engineers of the Space Program had liked best too. Ramuh’s sigil had been scribbled as a confirmation of inspection, marked into compartments with metal markers before closing them up to ask for favor. Shinra’s higher echelons disdained such superstitions, so everyone had kept it to small, subtle things, but to someone raised to it like Cid was, it marked the whole Space Department and Engineering Corp. You could tell who was one of Scarlet’s lackeys by who _didn’t_ have something sacred to Ramuh somewhere in their office: a baby sparkvine in a pot on their desk, a knot of electrical wires woven into the diamond shape of Ramuh’s Eye, a print of a thunderbird tacked to their cubicle wall.

Now that Shinra had abandoned the rocket, the faith had grown up like the weeds through the launchpad, claiming the whole town for its own. Ramuh looked over the bar from his niche, presiding over a host of prayer candles dedicated to the singular wish of all the residents of the town, for lightning to overcome all other elements and let the work of human hands enter space.


	5. Titan: Aeris

Titan is old, old, old in Aeris’ hands. She is Cetra, the last of her kind to walk the face of the Planet- but for how ancient her race was, there were things that were older.

Cetra come from Gaia, from the earth, but it’s in the same way that plants come from the earth. Cetra are Life, that which flourishes on the land, not the land itself. Looked at from that perspective, it’s no wonder that the time of the Cetra is coming to an end, old life giving way to new. Titan’s time- Gaia’s time- will not, cannot come to an end; or if it does, there will be nothing afterwards.

But there is one way that Titan and the Cetra are alike, despite their differences- they both are useless when it comes to foes from the sky.


	6. Odin: Cid

“Did you ever hear,” Vincent says, his rough voice making Cid startle and almost lose his cigarette, “about Odin wandering the world on his flying horse?”

“Ass,” Cid mutters, knowing full well that Vincent can hear him. He takes another drag and resettles himself on the wing of the Tiny Bronco. “Why’d ya ask?”

“An old man, charming, with the eyes of a warrior and a spear he uses as a staff,” Vincent…muses, is the only word Cid can come up with. Incredulous, Cid twists to take a look at Vincent. In the twilight it’s hard to tell, but Cid thinks that may be a slight _smile_ on Vincent’s lips. “But if you give him hospitality, you may find you’re not so well off in the morning.

Cid flushes. “Go t’ _hell_! If you weren’ so bent on bein’ sneaky and shit-”

Vincent looks away, hand going to cover his mouth. Just the way he’d looked at ass-o-clock that morning when Cid had to explain to the innkeeper why he’d thrown a chair through the door.

Answer: because of goddamn sneaky roommates who’d never heard of knocking.


	7. Kjata: Aeris

It’s a flash of awareness as Aeris runs through the Sleeping Forest, pressing hard to keep ahead of the party she had left in the night. She doesn’t have the time to stop and find it, really, but the sheer loneliness of the summon- fierce as fire, sharp as lightning, bitter as ice- stirs her pity.

She pauses, hand at her breast, and reaches out with a Cetra’s instinct. A touch of her will half-wakes the materia, wherever it’s hiding.

“I can’t help you,” Aeris says, “but maybe you can help my friends? The forest is confusing, and they aren’t Cetra.” She gives it an image of the people who are even now rushing in her wake. “They’ll take care of you, if that’s what you want.”

Kjata’s agreement isn’t enthusiastic, but it’s willing enough. With that, Aeris extends her stride once more, running down the line at the edge of her dreams, straight and clear.


	8. Bahamut: Cloud

A child of Mt. Nibel learned to be wary of dragons. Oh, it was wolves that the village talked about most, warned travelers of, and with good reason: you were much more likely to encounter Nibel wolves. But dragons held a special place in the fears of the town and its legends. The lord of the skies was to be propitiated, not prayed to.

The first time Cloud summons Bahamut, a shard of that remembered terror flicks into his heart. It’s mirrored by Tifa’s flinch, the muscles in her shoulders cording. They exchange a look, for once in perfect understanding. No gaps in his memory can hide this inborn fear.


	9. Neo-Bahamut: Cid

Once they get into the embrace of the hazy currents of the Lifestream that mark the inner border of the Northern Crater, the screaming glacial wind is no longer a problem. It’s still cold as Shiva’s tits, but there’s no ice crusted onto the stones any longer. Cid’s grateful, because trying to keep his feet in those conditions is basically flipping a coin: tails you lose.

They see the second black-cloaked man-woman-whatever-the-hell-these-people-look-like-anymore just past the border where glassy spires of beryl become plateaus and columns of green-touched stone. None of these poor bastards seem to have the will to fight, and this one is no exception. He-she-it takes a step off one of the plateaus and falls into the waiting darkness when they’re maybe fifty feet away.

Tifa makes an abortive motion as if she could clear the distance and save the thing, then subsides reluctantly. Cloud stares after it for a moment, hand tightening on the hilt over his shoulder, then turns without a word back to navigating. Their path, by coincidence or simple lack of choice, leads them right past the jumping point. Cid looks down into the crevasse as they pass and sees nothing.

Still, he’s looking more down than the others, so he’s the one that sees the dip next to the small mound of stone and the reflection of the Lifestream ahead off of the puddle. The unfrozen water has collected in a natural hollow in the stone, cradling an orb of crystal under its shivering and gleaming surface. Cid moves it with the butt of his spear- wet gloves are just an invitation to frostbite down here- until it surfaces at the edge of the pool. Cid wonders what new god has been waiting to be found here as he tucks the red materia into one of his pockets to chime against its siblings.


	10. Bahamut Zero: Cloud

The Huge Materia were- unsurprisingly- huge. Getting them up to Bugenhagen’s observatory was something of a trial, since Cosmo Canyon had so many _stairs_ , and the observatory was at the very top. Cid had given Cloud a _look_ when he had suggested bringing the Highwind around so they could just lower them down.

Which meant maneuvering a huge chunk of crystallized mako up ten flights of stairs. And Cloud was, of course, one of the lucky ones to get volunteered to do it because of his enhanced strength. Vincent, at least, had accepted his fate stoically. Compared to hauling body bags for the Turks, this was probably a holiday frolic.

Cloud huffed out a breath, lowering the blue materia until the slightly more rounded end rested on the platform and triggered the elevator up.

“It’s not so much how heavy it is, as how awkward it is to hold,” Cloud muttered. Vincent exhaled, the sound that Cloud had come to think of as his laugh. The sniper had discarded his cloak and armor before starting on the project, which made him look leaner than ever. Nevertheless, when they emerged into the starry space of the upper observatory, Vincent hefted his large burden with only minimal effort. Cloud grunted and did the same, hands seeking out ridges on the blue crystal until he could get a grip and lift it.

He lowered it into the waiting field, and tentatively took his hands away to make sure that the modified gravity had the crystal securely in its grasp. It bobbled a little and Cloud reached out to steady it with his bangled hand, the small materia in his bracelet reflecting the stars above.

The blue materia _flashed_ , startling Vincent into a whirl and Cloud to move with all the speed of his enhanced reflexes to catch a single drop of red that fell from the luminous crystal.

Cloud drew in a startled breath as the light dimmed, ebbing from the bloody tear, the materia, now cupped in his palms.


	11. Alexander: Barret

“It’s like Alexander,” Marlene says, patting her daddy’s gun arm. “An auto-auto…a machine! To protect people. So you’re like Alexander, daddy. ‘Cause you protect people too.”


	12. Leviathan: Yuffie

Wutai was an island nation, only a few hundred years out from being the scourge of the seas. Once, her people had conquered from the Forgotten Capital in the north to Mideel in the south, their boats painted from stem to stern with sea serpents. Leviathan had given them the oceans, had brought trade and built a flourishing empire.

But the favor of the gods was not forever. As the Cetra learned, so did Wutai. The power of water waned, in favor of the powers of fire and lightning. The eastern continent cast off Wutaian rule, and her serpent boats cut the waters of the Inner Sea no longer. She withdrew to her islands, scorning foreign trade and seeking to hold her secrets and remaining power to herself.

(Empires fall. Yuffie knew this from her cradle. Soon, if she had any say in it, these Shinra upstarts would heed this lesson.)


	13. Phoenix: Red XIII

Red XIII’s kind- _Nanaki’s_ kind- were once not the only species to walk Gaia with sentience to match that of humankind. The Cetra were one, of course, close cousin to the more populous but less wise race, but others as well: the frost-kin of the Northern Glacier, the phoenixes of the Eastern Continent. All had dwindled, having fewer and fewer children, becoming diminished shadows of themselves.

Nanaki wondered: if the Planet did call all of her wayward children home, would they be reborn someday? Would the Cetra rise again from the waters, the phoenixes burst forth from the primeval flame? Would his own kin walk Gaia again should the WEAPONS sweep all clean and bare, a blank canvas once again?


	14. Typhon: Red XIII

“The Ancient Forest is a place of mysteries,” Nanaki said, watching Tifa push back her sweaty hair and yank leaves and twigs from the dark strands. “Though I have lived close to it for many years, I have never seen it in its entirety. The climb alone is treacherous, and navigating the forest itself is…problematic.”

“Problematic, he says.” Tifa gave up and began braiding her hair. “There’s problematic, and then there’s _these plants_. Ugh.” She shucked her new bracer and the summon they had found in the higher levels of the trees to wipe the inside with her skirt.

Nanaki refrained from informing her of the last time he’d seen that armor, on one of the Turks that had pursued him through these mountains, and who had disappeared from the chase after he’d led them into the true forest’s verge. Thinking about how the bracer might have come to be hanging invitingly on a tree branch just within reach, with no signs of what happened to the prior owner, was worrisome.


	15. Hades: Vincent

“Are they…related?” Cloud asks one night, his voice near-slurring with tiredness.

Vincent raised an eyebrow, confident that even in the uneven light of the fire that Cloud’s enhanced eyes would catch the motion. Usually they didn’t take the same watch, but tonight was one of the nights where Cloud couldn’t seem to sleep. Vincent knew the feeling.

“Your demons. Summons.” Cloud gestured vaguely, his hand falling back down with a soft thump. “Summons are like…ideas that formed in the Lifestream and took on their own sort of life, right? Wouldn’t demons be the same thing? Nightmares given reality by our thoughts?”

“If those are the criteria that you’re using, we _all_ came from the Lifestream.” It’s an interesting thought. “For all I know, my…passengers are summons in fact. I was not conscious for…” Vincent trailed off, knowing that Cloud of all people would not need elaboration on the nature of Hojo’s procedures. “Summons are hardly all heroes and valor. Look at Hades. You might be closer to right than you think.”


	16. Knights of the Round: Cait Sith

The tales of the origins of the Knights of the Round are many and varied- it’s only predictable that Cait Sith offers just as many different versions as the mood suits him.

Some have them as followers of Alexander, protectors of mankind. In some, Alexander is their creation, a shield to protect humanity in their place. In some stories they are cursed to wander eternally, victim of the Ancients or the gods. In others they took up immortality willingly. Demons or angels, friends or foes- in every region there is a new story, and Cait Sith collects them like he collects funny looks.

He offers them back to AVALANCHE at night, weaving together the disparate tales into a tapestry of heroism and villainy, victory and sacrifice. It’s a little thing, a contribution that will never be recorded in the history books, but as the tension leaves the straight line of Cloud’s shoulders, Reeve thinks that he prefers it this way.


End file.
